Adventures in Bread

Regular readers will know that I enjoy making bread - I have even grown my own sourdough starter "pet", which lives in the fridge and comes out to be fed and made into rustic Italian breads and pancakes most weekends.

Now this requires planning as most of my favorite breads need at least a day to make, and include some kind of overnight rise or soak.  And while I love putting the effort and planning into these creations (and my forearms benefit from all that kneading), there are also times when I just come home from work and wish I could have some freshly baked homemade bread right then.  So while browsing at the library the other night, I came across a book I'd been interesting in reading for a while - Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  I've been devouring it for the past few evenings, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be devouring some of the bread made from it.

The premise stems from the school of no-knead bread baking (stop cheering forearms) and use of a wet dough.  The book lists several master recipes, of which you mix up a big batch of dough and then store in the refrigerator, tearing off enough to make whatever you require (the dough will last for 14 days in the fridge).

So this morning I got a 2.5 gallon container and made up a batch of the wholewheat master dough.  It rose nicely on the counter, and is now sitting happily in the fridge, probably being given the evil eye by my sourdough starter (I put them on separate shelves in case they decided to get into it).

I plan on using the first part of it to complement tomorrow night's valentines dinner.